Swansea City 4 – QPR 1

QPR saw their five-match unbeaten run come to an end on Saturday as they lost 4- 1 to Swansea City.

Manager Harry Redknapp couldn’t hide his disappointment with the way his team defended, with keeper Julio Cesear – so impressive in keeping four clean sheets in the last five league games – responsible for conceding three of the four goals. Redknapp felt Swansea didn’t have to work very hard for their goals, and given the way QPR have defended in their last five games, it was a disappointing display from the team who are desperate for points to lift them out of the bottom three.

Michu scored for Swansea in the eighth minute, and ten minutes later Angel Rangel doubled their lead. QPR were desperate to get back on level terms and were not helped when the referee denied a clear-cut penalty. Redknapp brought on Bobby Zamora after half time in an attempt to change his sides’ fortunes, and in the forty-eighth minute Zamora slotted the ball neatly into the back of the net to reduce the deficit to 2-1. But that was where the comeback ended, Pablo Hernandez added a third for Swansea in the fiftieth minute and Michu got his second goal of the game in the sixty-seventh minute.

Swansea City enjoyed 61% of the possession and with stats like that; Redknapp knows his team was outplayed for most of the match.

Luckily for QPR the teams around them – Wigan, and Reading both lost, had those teams won the points difference between QPR and their rivals would have been almost impossible to make-up. As it stands, QPR remain four points adrift at the foot of the table with only twelve games left to play.

And sadly for QPR things aren’t going to get much better anytime soon – their next opponents on February 23rd– league leaders Manchester Utd.